"It
stars Mann's favorite Western leading man James
Stewart in an anti-hero role."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

An odd psychological revenge Western from the story
and script by Borden Chase. It's directed with all the
clichés intact but freshened up with a vigorous
intensity by Anthony Mann ("Winchester '73"/"Bend of
the River"/"The Naked Spur"); it stars Mann's favorite
Western leading man James Stewart in an anti-hero
role. The misanthropic sullen loner role Stewart plays
has him saying such things as "I don't need other
people. I don't need help. I can take care of me." Its
photography is visually spectacular, especially those
stunning backdrops of the Rockies, the Columbia ice
fields and the Jasper National Park in Alberta,
Canada. Though not as powerful as the "Bend of the
River," a film it's closest to in theme, it
nevertheless is gripping and filled with rugged action
sequences.

It's set in 1896. Jeff Webster (James Stewart) and
his mother-hen chattering partner Ben Tatum (Walter
Brennan) dream of buying a small ranch in Utah and
settling down. To do this they are driving their
cattle to market from Wyoming to Seattle to Canada to
take advantage of the gold-crazy boom towns there that
pay top dollar for beef. When they arrive in Skagway,
Alaska, to sell their cattle the corrupt affable
judge/sheriff of the town Gannon (John McIntire)
brings Jeff to trial for the murder of two cowboys who
tried to steal his herd and the bogus trial, held in
the saloon owned by the sexy Ronda Castle (Ruth
Roman), ends in the acquittal of Jeff of the murder
charges but Gannon steals the cattle on the excuse he
was disturbing the peace. Jeff turns down a job offer
to be a deputy for the venal Gannon and accepts an
offer from Ronda to transport her equipment to her new
saloon address in the gold rush settlement of Dawson.
He does so knowing Gannon is transporting the herd
stolen from on him on a nearby route. On a ruse, Jeff
steals back his herd and takes them to Canada. In
Dawson, Ronda outbids the other buyers to buy Jeff's
herd and her saloon business booms as a result. Jeff
and his partner soon become successful as miners, but
when law and order breaks down the selfish Jeff is
asked to become a sheriff and clear up things but
selfishly refuses. It leads to Ben being killed by
Gannon's men and their gold stolen when they try to
leave town. Things come to head when the villainous
claim-jumper Gannon and Jeff must confront each other.

Corinne Calvet plays the homespun, tomboyish,
freckle-faced, French-Canadian lass who falls for
Stewart and is up against the more tough-minded
worldly woman Ruth Roman for his attention. Jay C.
Flippen is Stewart's good-natured, drunken partner,
and serves as comic relief; his tragic death becomes
the source of Stewart's repentance for his
selfishness.

Mann transfers his dark sided film noir characters
from such films as "Desperate," "Raw Deal" and "The
Border Incident" to the Western genre, and tackles
through these more shadowy visions such themes as the
mythic conflict between the individual and society,
between free will and anarchy, and the coming to terms
of the man with a painful past with his renewed life
spirit. The good versus evil theme of most Westerns at
that time is thankfully given a more realistic and
nuanced look. This was Mann's last collaboration with
Chase, which has a reluctant Stewart be heroic at the
last second to save the town from the tyrannical
doings of McIntire.